Month: March 2017

In this edition of Thinking with the Church, we are doing something a little bit different: rather than feature a conversation, our co-Founder, General Manager, and host, Chris Altieri, proposes an itinerary for the recovery of some basic notions regarding marriage.

My concern to say a few things about marriage arises principally out of an experience on social media this past week: I asserted something I believed to be uncontroversial, i.e. that marriage is not a supernatural vocation, but the natural state for human beings.

I went on to say:

It takes very little to *get married*. Having a good, or even a halfway decent marriage: now, that takes a little work, mostly at being human. If you suck at being human, you are going to suck at being married, see? Because marriage is the natural state for humans.

That language was certainly blunt, and perhaps overly harsh.

I stand by the substance of my remark, however, even as I crave pardon of anyone to whom I caused consternation, and beg leave to explain myself more fulsomely.

I had hoped to encourage a conversation about the nature and public purpose of marriage, rather than embark on a debate about whether the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony is something generally different from natural marriage.

Nevertheless, it quickly appeared that some words were needful by way of explanation of the matter.

In the Catholic tradition – and indeed in just about every human society since man first appeared on Earth – marriage is the permanent union of one man and one woman (even in polygamous societies and in societies that practice polyandry, the women in the harem and the men in the stable are not married to each other, but one person – usually though not always a man – will enter into several iterations of the binary union), founded in the natural order, for the consolation of the spouses who enter upon it, and for the general flourishing of the human race.

Our Divine Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, raised marriage to the dignity of a Sacrament: whenever two baptised Christians are validly married to one another, they have the Sacrament of Matrimony.

The union, in other words, is marital: it is by virtue of the spouses’ baptism, that they have the Sacrament when they are married.

It is not harder for Christians to contract marriage with each other, than it is for two persons of any other religion, or two persons of no religion, or one Christian and one non-Christian, to contract marriage with each other.

The Sacrament, in other words, is not something else, or something extra, something added by the Church: the Sacrament is simply what the marriage of two baptised persons is.

As one friend with many years’ experience with marriage tribunals in the Church pointed out: this is true of the union regardless of when the spouses were baptised in relation to their marriage contract.

In other words, even two non-Baptised persons who marry, have the sacrament once they are baptised – nothing else but their baptism is required in order that they have the Sacrament of Matrimony.

The principal purpose for my unsolicited assertion – a purpose I recognize as having been obscured by my brusqueness, was to point out that, while it is easy to contract marriage – even for Christians, whose marriages are Sacraments – it is not so easy to have a happy marriage, or even a halfway decent marriage.

This is, to one degree or another, something that has always been the case.

The problem for society arises when society itself loses sight of the public purpose of marriage as an institution – and the Church, I am sad to say, has been an unwitting participant in the darkening of society’s vision in these regards.

“Marriage,” said the Church to her members, who were also members of a society that had largely come to see marriage as little more than the public ratification of private sentiment and already begun in earnest to dismantle the protections it had erected for the institution, “is much, much more than mere ratification of sentiment – marriage is a Sacrament!”

This was true, to be sure, and still is.

The difficulty began to present itself when the Church began first to downplay the contractual character of marriage and then essentially to deny it: “Marriage is not a contract, it is a Sacrament!” we were wont to say.

The problem is, as I was at some pains to illustrate above, that the two categories are so far from being contraries, that they are actually concomitant – and that baptised spouses do not consent to something more, nor to something other than marriage, when they marry one another.

Pope Pius XII made the point in his October 3rd, 1941 Allocution to the Sacred Rota:

Indeed, if the tranquility, stability, and security of human intercourse in general demand that contracts be not lightly set aside, this is still more true of a contract of such importance as marriage, whose firmness and stability are necessary for the common welfare of human society as well as for the private good of the parties and the children, and whose sacramental dignity forbids that it be lightly exposed to the danger of profanation.

Pope St. John Paul II, in his own January 28th, 1991 Allocution to the same body, diagnosed the specific dangers to which contemporary society exposes both the institution of marriage and the people who enter into it:

In particular, in the affluent and consumeristic western world, such positive aspects tend to be distorted by an immanentistic and hedonistic vision that undermines the real meaning of marital love. It can be instructive to reread from the point of view of marriage what is said in the final report of the extraordinary Synod of Bishops about the external causes which impede the Council’s implementation: “In the wealthy nations we see the constant growth of an ideology characterized by pride in technical advances and a certain immanentism that lead to the idolatry of material goods, the so-called consumerism. From this can follow a certain blindness to spiritual realities and values” (I, 4). The consequences are ominous: “This immanentism is a reduction of the integral vision of the person, a reduction which leads not to true liberation but to a new idolatry, to the slavery of ideologies, to life in constraining and often oppressive structures of this world” (II, A. 1). From such a mentality the misconception of the holiness of the institution of marriage often follows, not to speak of the rejection of the institution of marriage itself, which opens the way for the spread of free love.

Even when it is accepted, the institution is often deformed both in its essential elements and in its properties. This happens, for example, when marital love is experienced in egoistic self-centeredness, as a form of evasion, which tends to justify itself and be consumed in itself.

Likewise freedom—although it is necessary for that consent which is basic to marriage—if it is absolutized, leads to the plague of divorce. People tend to forget then that in the face of difficulties in relationships it is important not to let oneself be dominated by fear or weariness, but to be able to find in love’s resources the courage to be consistent with the commitments made.

Renouncing one’s own responsibilities, moreover, rather than leading to true fulfillment of the person, results in a progressive self-alienation. In fact, it tends to attribute the difficulties to psychological mechanisms, whose functioning is understood in a deterministic manner, resulting in hasty recourse to the conclusions of psychology and psychiatry to claim the nullity of the marriage.

Three years earlier, on January 25th, 1988, Pope St. John Paul II made the point to the Rota that, in essence, many societies (and the Church present in those societies) have in fact confused the right and capacity to contract marriage, with the right and capacity to have a happy, successful marital union – even as they have also confused the issue of what constitutes “happiness” in marriage:

There is another and not infrequent source of misunderstanding in the evaluation of psychopathological symptoms. It arises not from an exaggeration of the extent of the illness but, on the contrary, from an unjustified exaggeration of the concept of capacity to contract marriage. As I noted last year (supra p. 192, no. 6), the misunderstanding can arise from the fact that the expert declares that a party is incapable of contracting marriage, while referring not to the minimum capacity sufficient for valid consent, but rather to the ideal of full maturity in relation to happy married life.

That last is a high and difficult ideal, indeed – and indeed, it escapes most of us, who are married.

Where I would like, humbly and tentatively, to suggest that – perhaps – we have gone wrong in the Church, is in our insistence that anyone who is not constantly living up, or close to that ideal, is therefore at present risk of total marital failure – is “doing it wrong” as the kids say today.

What we want – what we really want – is a return to a sense of basic decency and civility, of earnestness and willingness to make do.

As I put it, roughly, in a piece for the Irish Catholic a few months ago, in connection with World Youth Day:

We are all reluctant to admit failure, but find it easier to do when we can dress the task in which we failed in the raiment of impossibility.

Equally, we want to help young people find their way in a broken world – a world, for the brokenness of which we bear a great deal of responsibility.

We all want to empower young people to be courageous signs of contradiction and witnesses to the Gospel – but we often end up trying – vainly – to save them from our own missteps and seconding their angst-ridden adolescent penchant for navel-gazing even into their fourth decade of life on planet earth.

Let us rather encourage young people to get married and start families.

Times are tough, and life is complicated, but as we said at the outset, marriage is man’s natural state, and frankly does not take too much discernment.

My own American grandparents were 18 and 19 when they wed, and they’d grown up in the Depression and had to fight the II World War – which had just ended when they wed, so “times were tough” and “life was complicated” for them, too.

They had help, though: a sympathetic society and the GI Bill to pay for school – though there was no married student housing – something Catholic institutions might think about sponsoring today as a concrete way of putting our pro-life money where our pro-life mouth is.

Most importantly, let us remember that – Sacrament or no – the reason we say that marriage is the basic unit of society is that it is the one institution formed and constituted entirely on the giving and keeping of our word.

The kind of people we legitimately aspire to be, is one that does not despair of the human capacity, the capacity of men and women equally, though differently, to give their word, and to keep faith with it. Failure properly to exercise this duty of faith – of bona fides – is, here and there, inevitable.

In this edition of Thinking with the Church: Part II of a conversation with theologian Christopher Wells, who is pursuing a doctorate in Sacred Theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas – the Angelicum – here in Rome.

In Part I of our conversation, we explored the Doctrine of Papal Supremacy and the Dogma of Papal Infallibility – both definitively taught by the I Vatican Council in Pastor Aeternus.

Here, we delve more deeply into the historical roots and theological origins of the two teachings – but we come to that part of the conversation rather organically – beginning as we do with a discussion of the role of the Pontifical universities in the life of the Church.

Our discussions – taken singly or together – constitute what sounds like a “deep dive” into the issues of Papal Supremacy and Papal Infallibility: the truth is, we’ve barely scratched the surface.

Just a few of the outstanding questions that listeners have raised include:

Just exactly what does constitute “binding doctrine”? Could the Pope, for example, teach in a formal and binding way on, e.g. climate change?

What is the “hierarchy” of Papal pronouncements – i.e., given that, e.g., Papal interviews and homilies are not eis ipsis magisterial, and given that Popes have been using what is pretty much the most powerful tool in their teaching toolbox – the encyclical letter – for quite some time now to opine on all manner of question under the sun (Pius XII really got the ball rolling on that one), and given that the supreme governing authority of the Roman Pontiff is such, that it may be used to bind the faithful, even without teaching infallibly: what is the ordinary “scale” of authority controlling the various Papal teaching and governing tools in the present day?

What do we do if a Pope appears to teach something contradictory to previous teaching, or teaches something that appears to contradict established doctrine?

Well, those are hard questions, and well worth investigating with a blue-ribbon panel of theologians.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask us, and we’ll do our best to answer you.

I will say one word on the subject broadly and generally: this is my personal opinion – and while I believe it is in perfect conformity with orthodox Catholic faith – I certainly can’t bind anyone to it.

So, for what it’s worth, here goes:

Popes have held – even publicly – positions either declared heretical later or later discovered or declared to have been contra fidem even at the time the Pope was holding/publicly proclaiming it/them.

The locus classicus is Jn. XXII on the saints’ enjoyment of the Beatific Vision:

In the last years of John’s pontificate there arose a dogmatic conflict about the Beatific Vision, which was brought on by himself, and which his enemies made use of to discredit him. Before his elevation to the Holy See, he had written a work on this question, in which he stated that the souls of the blessed departed do not see God until after the Last Judgment. After becoming pope, he advanced the same teaching in his sermons. In this he met with strong opposition, many theologians, who adhered to the usual opinion that the blessed departed did see God before the Resurrection of the Body and the Last Judgment, even calling his view heretical. A great commotion was aroused in the University of Paris when the General of the Minorites and a Dominican tried to disseminate there the pope’s view. Pope John wrote to King Philip IV on the matter (November, 1333), and emphasized the fact that, as long as the Holy See had not given a decision, the theologians enjoyed perfect freedom in this matter. In December, 1333, the theologians at Paris, after a consultation on the question, decided in favour of the doctrine that the souls of the blessed departed saw God immediately after death or after their complete purification; at the same time they pointed out that the pope had given no decision on this question but only advanced his personal opinion, and now petitioned the pope to confirm their decision. John appointed a commission at Avignon to study the writings of the Fathers, and to discuss further the disputed question. In a consistory held on 3 January, 1334, the pope explicitly declared that he had never meant to teach aught contrary to Holy Scripture or the rule of faith and in fact had not intended to give any decision whatever. Before his death he withdrew his former opinion, and declared his belief that souls separated from their bodies enjoyed in heaven the Beatific Vision. – From The Catholic Encyclopaedia

His scriptis, the promise of Christ – which cannot fail – of the Holy Spirit, is such that no Bishop of Rome shall ever formally teach heresy.

The upshot of this is that we are free to question both the prudence of his procedure, and the correctness of this or that attempt to implement his teaching (up to and including the need for any such implementation).

With regard to this last point, Paul’s rebuke of Peter as recorded in Gal. 2:11-15, is perhaps especially pertinent and instructive: Paul rebuked Peter not for having taught erroneously, but for having taught one thing rightly (viz. table fellowship with Gentiles), and then refused to give his correct and true teaching the corroboration of personal example.

Broadly and generally speaking, then: one can disagree with the prudence of a measure, (take, e.g. the disciplinary rules regarding altar girls or communion in the hand), or with the manner in which a thing is done, viz. then-Card. Ratzinger’s criticism of what he saw as the incompleteness of HV (he thought it would have been well served by an extensive treatment of the philosophical underpinnings of the notion of nature on which the teaching rests), and yet accept wholeheartedly and even offer a full-throated defense of both the disciplines and the teachings with the prudence and/or execution of which one disagrees or for which one harbors reservations.

Perhaps Trumpkin the Dwarf said it best in Prince Caspian: “You are my King. I know the difference between giving advice and taking orders. You’ve had my advice, and now it’s the time for orders.”

It is the mark of a wise and prudent ruler, that he should not give orders, but after taking counsel from those he knows will speak frankly and disinterestedly, nor in such a manner as to allow for doubt among candid subjects regarding what his orders are, let alone whether he has given orders at all.

There are exceptions even to these general rules of conduct, though, and a good subject will always know how to obey.

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In her Dogmatic Constitution, Pastor Aeternus, on the Church of Christ, the Fathers of the I Vatican Council taught that the Bishop of Rome has direct, immediate, and supreme authority over the whole Church and all the faithful.

This is the doctrine of Papal Supremacy.

The Council also taught that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex Cathedra, that is, when in discharge of the office of Pastor and Teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the Universal Church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals: and that therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church.

This is the dogma of Papal infallibility.

These teachings – of an Ecumenical Council – are to be held by all the faithful on pain of mortal sin: to deny them is to separate oneself from the Body of Christ.

Only, what do these teachings mean?

More importantly, what don’t they mean?

Where did they come from?

Why did the Fathers of the I Vatican Council bother with them at all, and why do we bother with them today, when the Papacy as an institution often appears rather to be an impediment to Christian unity than anything else (and don’t be upset with me – I didn’t say it, Pope St. John Paul II did in Ut unum sint, 96).

This week, we explore these questions and others with Christopher Wells, a theologian doing Doctoral work at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, who has written extensively on both subjects, especially their treatment in the thought and writings of the great 19th Century theologian and Churchman, Henry Edward Cardinal Manning.

This week on Thinking with the Church: a conversation with Claudia Giampietro on language, the law, and genuine truth-seeking dialogue as a form of public witness to the faith in the search for Christian unity.

Claudia Giampietro is a young canonist pursuing doctoral studies at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas – the Angelicum – who is a trained professional interpreter and translator.

She has just completed her first major academic translation project: an English edition of the 2015 manual by Prof. Luigi Sabbarese of the Pontifical Urbaniana University, Diritto canonico: Canon Law: which is in the final stages of proofing and will soon be available through the Urbaniana University Press.

St. Thomas tells us that a law is a dictate of reason ordered to the common good and promulgated by competent authority (cf. ST IaIIae Q.90).

The Church has a whole legal structure of its own – and though there are in every age people who would oppose the characteristic freedom of the perfect society that is the Church to the compulsions and constraints of legal force, the Church is the People of God, and there cannot be a people without a law – and the Church’s law is not only an essential and integral part of the Church’s life, without which she could not be herself, let alone accomplish her mission, it is also one of the great and indispensable contributions the Church has made to the cultural patrimony of mankind.

Claudia’s training before the law, however, was in languages: ancient languages – especially Latin – and modern tongues: she is a professional interpreter, who has volunteered her expertise through several World Youth Days – and she shares with us some really terrific stories about her adventures in interpretation in the service of Papal MC Msgr. Guido Marini and even Pope Francis, himself.

We pick up our conversation, though, with Claudia explaining the importance of developing a deep understanding of language, not only or even primarily as a means of communication, but as a whole way of seeing and being in the world – a condition of intelligibility and therefore of communicability itself.

She uses the Latin term, mens, which could be translated “mind” but really conveys more than what we mean by “mind” in English: to have the mens of a language is to inhabit a whole world of words and of thought.

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The doctoral dissertation to whichhost Chris Altieri alludes is by Elena Mannucci:

***Editor’s Note: Our friend, Artur Sebastian Rosman of Cosmos The In Lost at Patheos, was looking for a Catholic response to news that astronomers have spotted several possibly habitable exoplanets in our corner of the galaxy. TwtC host Chris Altieri had the idea to reach out to Fr. Brian Reedy SJ, a biophysicist, philosopher, and officer in the US Navy, to talk about the discovery – get the full write-up on Cosmos , here.

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration captured the attention and imagination of a global audience late last month, when NASA scientists announced the discovery of seven planets orbiting a star dubbed TRAPPIST-1 (an acronym for Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope), a mere 40 light-years distant from Earth, all of which are Earth-sized and three of which are in the so-called “goldilocks” or habitable zone – meaning that their positions relative to their “home” star suggest they could have liquid water and temperatures capable of sustaining life as we know it.

We reached out to Fr. Brian Reedy SJ, a biophysicist (and philosopher and theologian and officer in the US Navy), who talked us through the science and shared some of his thoughts on the possible implications of discovering we have neighbors in our corner of the galaxy.